r mother's constant attendance on the
Queen, and the perpetual plots for that lady's escape. "She is as
shifty and active as any cat-a-mount; and at Chatsworth she had a
scheme for being off out of her bedchamber window to meet a traitor
fellow named Boll; but my husband smelt it out in good time, and had
the guard beneath my lady's window, and the fellows are in gyves, and
to see the lady the day it was found out! Not a wry face did she make.
Oh no! 'Twas all my good lord, and my sweet sir with her. I promise
you butter would not melt in her mouth, for my Lord Treasurer Cecil
hath been to see her, and he has promised to bring her to speech of her
Majesty. May I be there to see. I promise you 'twill be diamond cut
diamond between them."

"How did she and my Lord Treasurer fare together?" asked Mrs. Babington.

"Well, you know there's not a man of them all that is proof against her
blandishments. Her Majesty should have women warders for her. 'Twas
good sport to see the furrows in his old brow smoothing out against his
will as it were, while she plied him with her tongue. I never saw the
Queen herself win such a smile as came on his lips, but then he is
always a sort of master, or tutor, as it were, to the Queen. Ay," on
some exclamation from Lady Talbot, "she heeds him like no one else.
She may fling out, and run counter to him for the very pleasure of
feeling that she has the power, but she will come round at last, and
'tis his will that is done in the long run. If this lady could beguile
him indeed, she might be a free woman in the end."

"And think you that she did?"

"Not she! The Lord Treasurer is too long-headed, and has too strong a
hate to all Papistry, to be beguiled more than for the very moment he
was before her. He cannot help the being a man, you see, and they are
all alike when once in her presence--your lord and father, like the
rest of them, sister Grace. Mark me if there be not tempests brewing,
an we be not the sooner rid of this guest of ours. My mother is not
the woman to bear it long."

Dame Mary's tongue was apt to run on too fast, and Lady Talbot
interrupted its career with an amused gesture towards the children.

For the little Cis, babe as she was, had all the three boys at her
service. Humfrey, with a paternal air, was holding her on the
window-seat; Antony Babington was standing to receive the ball that was
being tossed to and fro between them, but as she never caught it, Wi